Nufarm general manager for Australasia Lachie McKinnon says that while the GFC took the edge of discretionary spending, Nufarm was pushing on with new products and packaging.
It launched a $10 million update to its herbicide range and showcased its award-winning packaging system before a crowd of about 120 distributors and farmers at its headquarters in Laverton last week.
The launch was the first in a series that will take its updated Roundup – ‘Roundup Attack’ - on the road interstate with its latest 2,4D, ‘Amicide Advance 700’ and the broadleaf herbicide ‘Sharpen’.
Guests at the launch toured the Nufarm plant and inspected the company’s QuikPour packaging line. QuikPour is a bladder-in-a-box system designed to reduce spillage, speed decanting, reduce packaging weight and promote recycling. It received a gold medal at this year’s Australian Packaging Design Awards and also received the APDA ‘Best of Show’ award.
National sales manager, Warren Ramsay, said the $10m investment involved new formulations, testing, field trials and user reliability trials prior to their delivery to market.
“It is a tangible example of our commitment to innovation and vision to bring new products to market, despite the difficult times within our business recently,” he said.
The firm’s global general manager agriculture Brian Benson said the products were designed for Australian farmers and tested in local conditions. He said all three products delivered significant differentiated benefits.
“Investment in research and development for new and differentiated products is fundamental to our success,” he said. “Nufarm continues to invest in new products, both in crop protection and in seeds and traits, to ensure we continue to be relevant to our customers.
He said the company’s traditional focus on herbicides would broaden in future as it introduced differentiated fungicides, insecticides and seed treatment products.
“We are committed to agriculture and we are committed to Australian agriculture.” he said.
The new products launched by Nufarm are:
- Roundup Attack with iQ inside - The latest in this well-known suite of glyphosate solutions. It will replace Roundup PowerMAX in February 2012.
With 570g/L of active ingredient, Nufarm says ‘Attack with iQ inside’ delivers faster brownout, better final control and is more robust on hard-to-kill weeds.
- Amicide Advance 700 Replacing Amicide 625 and Surpass 457, Nufarm says this is the world’s first 700g/L 2,4-D amine dual salt formulation - up to 2.3 times stronger than other formulations. Amicide Advance 700 is non-volatile and compatible with all Roundup products.
- Sharpen is a new broadleaf herbicide molecule. It delivers fast burndown on weeds such as young fleabane, capeweed, sowthistle and wild radish and is Roundup compatible.